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I now have a Pinterest button attached to the pictures on my blog post. Feel free to pin!

I have been a bad food blogger lately, these past few weeks have just been a complete blur. It just seemed like everything has been due at one once for school and I had a few other side projects come up that also took up quite a bit of time. Today, I was determined to take the time to sit down and write a blog post since it's been way to long since my last post.

I figured this would be a good time share my review on a new toy that I got a few weeks ago in the form of a immersion circulator. By now you all know that I am a huge advocate for Sous Vide cooking and how I feel about it. In the past purchasing a piece of sous vide equipment was quite a set back, but fortunately companies are starting to enter the market and offer affordable immersion circulators for the home cook. Which is exciting, because I definitely feel like sous vide cooking is a huge untapped resource for your average home cook who don't have a lot of time to cook. Sous vide makes it so easy to prepare delicious meals, with little fuss, really a set it and forget it style of cooking.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege o demoing an immersion circulator from Anova and I was extremely impressed. What I really liked is the build quality, it is mainly made of metal and has a very solid feel to it. The next part that I loved is the touch screen and user interface. It was very easy to use and didn't require any manual reading to figure out how to use it. It was literally pull out of the box, put it in a pot of appropriate size, fill it with water, and use. The final aspect I loved is the price point, it retails for $199, which is by far one of the cheapest immersion circulators on the market. While it is one of the cheapest, it definitely feels like one of the most expensive ones, so you feel like you purchased a quality product. The only down fall, and this is pretty true with all the "at home" immersion circulators, is the actual circulator aspect of the device. While it does work and circulates the water, the more expensive models tend to have stronger motor. Overall, this is a fantastic option for somebody interested in sous vide cooking. So be sure to head over to Anova and check out their product!

The beauty to sous vide is that you can cook anything in them, proteins, vegetables, desserts...anything you want you can use sous vide for. I decided that I wanted to make Faiitas with the new Anova circulator cause 1) That sounded delicious and 2) because I wanted to show off a two stage cooking process on my blog. Basically what I did was first I vacuum sealed the peppers and onions with some fajita seasoning in one bag and cooked those first at 185F for 45 minutes. After that, I lowered the temperature to 146F and cooked the chicken breasts with some fajita seasoning and chipotle butter for 2 hours. I kept the peppers and onions in the water bath while the chicken was cooking to basically hold them and keep them warm. It was ridiculously easy and made some of the best fajitas ever!

Other sous vide recipes you may enjoy...

I am a HUGE ice tea person, it is definitely one of my favorite beverages. So when I got the opportunity to review some of Mighty Leaf Tea iced tea products I jumped at the opportunity.

Mighty Leaf Tea was born for the sole purpose of infusing life into an ancient indulgence by creating tea products that reach new heights of quality and innovation.

The genesis of Mighty Leaf Tea came in 1996 as a result of a shared passion and dream envisioned by husband-and-wife team Gary Shinner and Jill Portman when they founded their teahouse on Fillmore St. in San Francisco.

Their passion is for creating the most incredible handcrafted tea blends found anywhere, globally sourcing the finest ingredients available. Paralleling the highest standards of quality at Mighty Leaf Tea is ongoing creative innovation.

Their specially created handcrafted Tea Pouches are designed to unleash the essence of the quality that is Mighty Leaf Tea. Supporting our quality and innovation is our promise to deliver the highest level of customer service excellence in serving you the finest tea products available.

The nice people over at Might Leaf Tea were kind enough to send me a couple of boxes of their iced tea mixes that over the past few weeks I have been giving a try. They sent me Calypso Mango, Ginger Peach, Organic Black, and Sunburst Green Tea. All of which I loved, but if I had to choose a favorite I would definitely go with the Calypso Mango. I've always liked black tea a little more than green tea and the addition mango just set it over the top.

It was very easy to make, they give you a step by step guide on how to brew it. What I ended up doing was bringing two cups of water to a boil, then adding the boiling water to a glass drink pitcher. Then I added 3/4 cup of sugar to the hot water and stirred to dissolve (I like sweet tea). I then added my choice of Mighty Leaf Tea bag to the pitcher and let it steep for about 5 min. Next, I removed the tea bag and squeezed all the excess water out, then filled up the drink pitcher with 2 more cups of cold water and then refrigerate. Or instead of adding 2 cups of cold water, you can fill the pitcher up with ice to serve immediately.

Head on over to Mighty Leaf Tea now and check out there huge variety of hot teas and cold teas!